


yomi

by chuchisushi



Series: linger [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Case Fic, Human!zenyatta, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Unreliable Narrator, a rather frank discussion of a murder, genji pretty much just blatently hits on zenyatta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 23:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9520970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chuchisushi/pseuds/chuchisushi
Summary: In which a man finds what remains.





	

**Author's Note:**

> chronologically, this fic takes place in the later-middle part of 'migration' and works to fill in some of the gap. Reading 'migration' first isn't absolutely necessary, but it is suggested. (i'm so glad to finally post it though; i actually wrote this fic months before 'migration' and it's been stubbornly languishing since its completion :"/)
> 
> many thanks as always go to my brother, who gently whapped me over the head when i tried to make an entire paragraph without a period, for his beta

He wanders, because that is what he has devoted himself to, and when he comes across the vast gates of the grand estate, he does not hesitate in his steps.

This little stretch of cobbled road is well-cared for; both it and the low step before the towering wooden gate have been swept clean, weeds and creepers stripped from the stone faces of the walls surrounding the estate; the family’s emblem – two dragons consuming each other in an endless spiral – is burnt into the doors, clean and crisp-edged. When he sets knuckles against the grain, he does not flinch, despite the sensations that ripple through his bones, up through his gauntlets and down into his chest – he waits instead, patient, until the gate creaks open the barest hint, enough to admit the view of an eye, lit from underneath by the glow of an unseen lantern, to bow deeply to it.

“Venerable one!” the guard says, and there is enough surprise within the gruffness that it makes the monk’s eyebrows rise behind the brim of his hat. “It is unusual to see one such as yourself at our doors – ” and then the guard’s voice briefly falters, because their stretch of road is clean and well-kept, and there had been a temple at the heart of the estate – and yet what he says is true, somehow. It has been a long time since they have had visitors.

Yet the guard continues as though he had not stopped. “But I am afraid you cannot enter. The lord and his family have business tonight and have given their orders.”

The monk seems to consider the statement for a moment; then he returns, in a deep voice somehow belayed by the slightness of his frame, “Then may I avail myself enough of your kindness to have a cup of hot water? The days grow short as the seasons change, and the road yet stretches long before me.”

The guard hesitates – for he is not a heartless man, and the pull of dusk and autumn lies chill about his shoulders as well – before grunting and shouldering the gate wider, wide enough to admit a single man.

“Do not disgrace me in my moment of kindness, venerable one. Use the servants’ ways to the kitchen – and do not linger. The elders will have my head if they see you.”

“May the blessings of the universe find you,” the monk intones before stepping into the estate. “And my personal thanks to you as well.”

“The kitchen is to the south. Do not tarry,” the guard grunts in reply; he gestures with his lantern, and the warm shadows cast by it wobble and sway alarmingly before they settle. The monk bows to him once more, and starts upon the way; he glances back once, and the estate is not so vast, but the light of the guard’s lantern has already dwindled behind him until it is little more than the blue-green gutter of a candle flame.

He turns his face forward and walks on.

The grounds are similarly well-kept: lanterns light the walkways of the lords and the wood runners of the buildings glimmer clean underneath them. The greenery is trimmed. Somewhere, from within a garden, a deerscare clicks, burbles, murmurs to itself. The scent of day flowers, closing now as night falls, lingers in the air, coloring it sweet. The monk finds his way to the kitchen, the back door used for deliveries, for the men and women that keep the household alive, and knocks.

The rustles of movement inside (enough, surely, for a full compliment of kitchen staff) cut off. There is a pause that stretches long, and then the door slides open just enough to reveal a female servant – young, not yet worn down by the work, though the beginnings of stern lines shadow the corners of her mouth; the muscles of her arms briefly stand in sharp definition as she shifts the wood before they disappear, a hidden threat.

“Venerable one,” she begins, though there is a hint of skepticism in her tone as she looks the monk up and down, a wary, leashed caution. He knows what she sees: a slender, long-limbed man with dark skin, who wears black robes interrupted by a slash of saffron over the muted gleam of metal and clean leather. His sandals are worn and fraying and there is dirt from the road on his legs. He has no walking stick, no monk’s staff – merely a bundle slung at the small of his back and a straw hat tipped low over his features. He does not present a threat, yet something makes her hesitate, makes her wary, be it the unfamiliar color of the robes or the armor itself – yet the cut of the cloth is familiar and he carries no weapons.

The monk tips his head back, thumbs at the brim of his hat to let it slide off of his head, revealing its shorn-clean surface, and he smiles. He knows his eyes are very dark, his gaze warm, and his smile even moreso, because he has been told as much by many, and the woman relaxes slightly where she kneels, reassured, suddenly tipped in her judgment in the man’s favor.

“Good evening,” the monk says. “I have come merely to beg a cup of hot water to drink. The nights grow long, but I will not tarry – the guard at the gate was vehement about his grace,” he concludes with a soft laugh, and the woman snorts and rolls her eyes and opens the door a little wider.

“Come in, get out of the chill – I know you’re hardy folk, but you’ve been out there long enough for the dew to collect on you. We have one of yours catching their death out here, heavens know what karma will come down on us.” She stands and retreats further inside, and the monk follows, stepping up into the doorway, shedding water with every motion. A fog has rolled in, likely with the drop in temperature. As he closes the door behind him, it begins to rain – a light fall, little better than a mist.

“Sit down by the fire! Over here, come on.” The woman is pouring hot water from a pan into a beaten metal kettle, taking down two equally battered cups from a shelf, alone in the big kitchen. The monk lingers where he stands, watching her, before his attention is drawn to the open window above the fire pit placed against the wall.

“I only require a single cup of hot water, my lady,” he begins, amusement tempering the gravity of his tone into something lighter; she laughs in response.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry – everyone’s off attending the lord and his elders tonight anyhow. Not the first steep on the tea either, given how long they’ve been in there, but it’s got a little life left in it – enough for common folk like us, yeah? You’re not harming us none, so come on, rest your feet. I’d put you up for the night like I bet you were hoping for, but – ” She trails off, face twisted into a grimace, before shaking her head.

The monk settles beside her, knelt upon the floor, and ventures neutrally, “The guard was quite vehement about my not being seen by the eldest of the family.”

The woman huffs out a breath through her nose. “Rin’s not a bad sort, really. It was for your own good, promise.” She pours the tea with aplomb, not spilling a drop, and then hooks a low stool closer to sit as well, passing one cup to the monk. He closes his hands around it, wraps long fingers about the metal and savors its warmth seeping through his gauntlets.

“They are the traditional kind, then,” he asks, delicate, and then sips his tea slowly when the woman bobs her brows, a show of neither affirmation or dismissal, rooted in a wary protectiveness of a different sort.

They drink tea in unison, silence stretching between them – and for a moment, all is still, until the stillness is broken by the deliberate scuff of a foot.

Both the monk and the woman tense, turn, heads snapping to the source, but only the woman rises, a hasty scramble to her feet that immediately drops into a low bow to the seething clouds of purple that fill the doorway to the house proper, sheltered from the sky by a canopy roof whose sides remain open. “M-m’lord,” she stammers, and for a moment the obscuring vapor stills, frozen, before resuming its movement.

“Yuki,” the mass says, and its voice is that of a young man, a regal bearing hardly softened by the apparent indulgence in his words: “Who is this?”

“A traveling monk, my lord,” the monk says, standing as well before he dips into a bow himself. “Resting for a moment in shelter kindly lent.”

“Hm… I see.” A pause, slight hesitation, then,” Be sure he is out of the house within the hour, Yuki. Uninvited guests are not welcome tonight, whether or not they are servants of the divine. Have you seen my brother? His presence is required, and the wretch is late once again.”

Beside the monk, the woman shakes her head. “I have not seen him since noon, m’lord.”

The clouds of vapor slump, then billow up once more, expanding beyond their previous bounds in apparent agitation. “Damn him – of all nights.” There is the rustle of cloth, then, “If you see him, send him along. His insolence will be the death of us both – ” before the mass swivels where it stands as if to exit into the night. And yet, it hesitates.

Outside, the rain has intensified. There is a weighty pause.

“Venerable one. Best you be on your way soon. There is a storm brewing to the north. The night will only grow more inhospitable from here.”

Then he is gone, and, beside the monk, Yuki exhales a vast breath before straightening. She shakes her head and runs hands through her hair, smoothing its ends back down from the aura of electricity left in the lord’s wake.

“Sorry about that. Shimada-sama can be a little… off-putting.” She gives the monk a lopsided smile. “But his weather predictions are never wrong, unfortunately. Best wrap up if you want to make it to better shelter before – ”

“Psst – Yuki – is he gone?”

Yuki bites off a startled screech that quickly turns into a berating scowl as a figure – dressed in water-slick armor, with a long sword slung across his back, another at his waist – swings through the open window, trailing droplets that make the fire hiss. He lands, deft, light, and even straightens with something of a flourish that could almost be called a _pose_ – before he is rudely collared by Yuki, who proceeds to drag him towards the door to the estate.

“Genji, could you not _behave_ for all of three hours?!” she exclaims over his protests of rough treatment. “Especially tonight of all nights! Get down to the main hall and hope to all the great and little gods that your family has mercy on your playboy ass because _heavens know_ , I – ”

The monk smiles faintly as the young man executes something of a twist and squirm, somehow sliding right out of the arm Yuki has about his neck; the young man – this Genji, apparently, the errant brother himself – manages to make it to where the monk is standing, watching, before Yuki catches up with him long enough to fasten a hand in the long scarf draped about his neck.

“ _Genji_ ,” she hisses. “Now is _not the time_ – ”

“Venerable one,” Genji purrs, and, _oh_ , the monk _knows_ that tone of voice. He knows that sly slant of these dark eyes and the fire that simmers within them, knows what they promise; he covers his smile politely with his sleeve even as the young man continues, grandly, fingers deft as he unknots his scarf and lets Yuki claim it so he can get closer. “Please, be welcome to the Shimada estate. I must admit, I have never seen the raiment of your sect before – perhaps, if you would allow me a, ah, _closer_ examination of them, it would jog my memory? Or perhaps a private sermon on the particulars of your creed; I am sure that would be even more edifying for us bo – _Yuki_!!” His smooth delivery is cut short by an undignified squawk as the woman gets a firm enough hold on the chestplate of Genji’s armor to outright hoist him off of the ground, the muscles in her arms standing clear against her skin, manhandling him backwards towards the exit. “I haven’t even introduced myself – !”

“ _This_ , venerable one,” Yuki wheezes, exasperation in her voice. “Is the second son of the Shimada. The young lord Shimada Genji, who is currently _very late_ for his clan meeting and who has _no time_ to chase robes anyway – ”

“It is a pleasure, Lord Shimada,” the monk interrupts, amused by the way Genji’s face brightens. “I am humbly referred to as Tekhartha, and I am afraid I will be quitting your company within the hour. I have been assured that the storm will only strengthen, and will need to seek shelter for the night.”

Genji’s face brightens further even as Yuki’s darkens. “Do not _dare_ – ” she begins before Genji overrides her words with, “Then please, by all means! Stay the night – what inhospitable unkindness would we court if we denied a holy man a place of rest, Yuki? Do not give me that look; it’s true.” He yelps. “Gently – gently, please!” as he’s dropped unceremoniously out the door.

“Get cleaned up! Go to your meeting before Hanzo puts you into an early grave!” she shouts out at him, before yelping and ducking as Genji somehow scales the doorframe itself to slide back into the kitchen above her head.

“Here, please – it is raining, but I would hate to deprive you of at least a look at our grounds,” Genji says, light, exuberant, and presenting a furled umbrella that had been tied at his waist to the monk where he stands yet. “You are my guest and thus my responsibility – I will take kind care of you, I swear it. I’ll find you after I meet with the others…?” and here he tilts his head so earnestly, curious and bright-eyed, with the paper umbrella held out so hopefully before him, that Zenyatta cannot help but smile as he accepts it.

“You had best hurry,” is his answer, however, gently. “Time may be an illusion, but your family does not appear to wait on any, man or beast.”

Briefly, so briefly, there and gone again, Genji’s face darkens, as though from a shadow cast by a stormcloud, and those kind black eyes morph into something hard, like ash-glass arrowheads too sharp, even as the man answers, airily, “Oh, I have all the time in the world.” Then the emotion is gone, as though it had never been, and Genji says, lightly, playfully, “See you later, venerable one,” before he retreats, underneath his own power this time.

In the ringing silence that falls, Zenyatta unfurls the umbrella, shakes it of the rain that had dewed upon it. At the doorway, Yuki sighs.

“I can’t say if that was clever or foolish work done,” she remarks a trifle sourly as she crosses the kitchen back to where the monk stands, stopping in front of him with her hands upon her hips. “You don’t have to lie with him if you’d prefer to not – he won’t take offense, will let you sleep in his bed, even, if you’d like.”

“You are familiar with him,” Zenyatta remarks as he twirls the umbrella, eyes picking out the painted dragons that sweep across the oiled cloth.

“We were about the same age when I was adopted into the household. He and Hanzo are lord’s sons though – too rich for my blood.” She waves a hand as though to dispel smoke. “But not for others. He _is_ sincere, even if the only thing that comes out of his mouth nowadays is horseshit.”

Zenyatta carefully closes the umbrella, leans it against a supporting post. “And before you came to the home of the Shimada’s lords?” he asks mildly, curious. She laughs.

“A monastery – so I’m weak to those bald heads of yours. Reminds me of all my surrogate fathers.”

  


He refuses food when it is offered to him, asks instead, “They are new enough in their grief, aren’t they?” with the steady drum of rain behind his words. Yuki’s face goes regretful even as she carefully pours hot tea over her rice.

“I couldn’t relate to them in that. Bad enough for Hanzo when we were young, when their mother passed – even worse now for their da.” She shakes her head. “Heavy stuff all around. You could still go, you know? Not too late to keep from getting tangled up in the affairs of the wealthy.”

And for that Zenyatta smiles at her, the expression soft and warm but weighted world-weary, a breadth of experience in it belayed by the years on his brow. “I’m afraid I cannot,” he replies gently, touches briefly the grid of dark scars upon his forehead, the beads about his neck, with long, slender fingers laced tightly into gauntlets. Yuki watches him with a wary caution in her eyes and returns, “As you like.”

He takes the umbrella with him when he goes, unfurls it under the canopy and rests it on his shoulder before gazing up into the bruise-dark stormclouds, watching for lightning. He steps out into the rain as thunder peals in the heavens, tilts his head to one side as though listening to its fading echoes, and turns to venture deeper into the estate.

There are other buildings, other halls, an archery range and stables in the distance, but Zenyatta does not approach any of them despite the glow of the lanterns hung on their doors – he knows that they will be empty of what he seeks. He walks, instead, and his feet find cobbles and then his hand wooden rails polished water-dark, and with every step towards the heart of the estate, the rain strengthens, little by little until it roars like a white beast unbound, sheeting heavy enough to obscure sight, sound, and perhaps even thought.

Or memory, maybe, Zenyatta thinks, almost wistful even as he draws to a halt before the great tree that grows in the central courtyard of the Shimada home; vast, its boughs are dark and bare and lashing, and he closes his eyes, because the report of the doors to the main house rattling home into their frames as they open somehow yet slams out clear across the waterlogged dirt.

There is nothing inside them – nothing but blackness and seething shadow the same color as the clouds above, an absolute indigo darkness that draws the eye. Zenyatta is not surprised to find Genji’s hand squeezing the muscle of his upper arm tight enough to bruise when he opens his eyes; the young lord has silently appeared underneath the shelter of the umbrella, face bloodlessly pale as he stares unwavering at the open door.

“You have to go,” he hisses to Zenyatta. “You have to go – before he sees – ” He is soaked to the bone, water beading on his blue lips. As Zenyatta considers him, a figure emerges from the depths of the house. It is almost as pale as Genji, another young lord, dark-haired, with broad shoulders, an ungracefully stubborn chin, and brows as wild as Genji’s own. The resemblance is more than passing, and Genji watches as the man, his brother, stumbles in the doorway, clutching briefly at the frame white-knuckled – before loosing it as he slowly, so slowly straightens.

“Do you know what the eldest Shimada commanded of him that night?” Zenyatta asks, gently, and the roar of the storm cannot contain the entirety of the depthless reverberations that swell his simple words into the gong of temple bells. Genji stands frozen, dripping, underneath the umbrella, and feels a shiver course through his limbs. He licks his lips and tastes iron.

“No,” he says, and, across the courtyard, Hanzo’s spine tightens to full. His shoulders go back. Zenyatta feels the way the ground shudders when the man takes his first step, and he watches Genji watch Hanzo as the elder walks towards them, watches the way the water beading on Genji’s lips colors slowly from clear into red.

“They gave him an ultimatum. Bring the second son of the Shimada to heel, or disgrace the name of his father and his father’s father and his father’s father before him. Bring Shimada Genji under his control, or see how shallow the loyalties to the new lord were. Make Shimada Genji listen – or see him slain by his own blood,” Zenyatta answers. Below his feet, the long grass of a meadow whips, claws at the lengths of his calves and ankles with the ferocity of the stormwinds. Above them, there is only empty sky. The eldest Shimada walks towards them, step by implacable step, the grass parting before him, and Zenyatta continues, gentle and just as unmoved as he:

“You met outside town, the young lord and you. You quarreled, and the embers of your grief flared in tandem with your rage. Neither of you yielded – and your brother struck you down in his anger, aim too true for the rain that fell.

“Shocked into awareness at the sight of your blood upon his blade, he faltered. Awoke. It was too much – that last thing that broke him. He fled, and you listened to his footsteps recede through ears filling with blood and water and _hated_.” Shaking full-bodied, eyes too-wide, Genji trembles at Zenyatta’s side and makes a small sound of denial – a soft sound of grief – even as Zenyatta reaches up to clasp his other hand about the clutch of Genji’s. “ _Look_. See the truth, Shimada Genji,” and for the first time since the doors to the main house had opened before him, Zenyatta _moves_.

He sweeps out one foot- rebalances himself – and the very _air_ shudders when he shifts Genji along with it; he pulls Genji _to_ and the world shakes, ripples in reaction to both the motion and the startled noise Genji makes at it, his surprise when he is jostled so and how his gaze goes to Zenyatta for it. And, when he finds the depths of those kind, dark eyes flaring foxfire blue and unearthly, the scene – the _memory_ – of the meadow where Shimada Genji had lain, bleeding out and _loathing_ , dispels.

They both watch as Hanzo makes his way through the light rain – little more than a mist – to the foot of the grand tree they stand by. Watch as the man – and, in this moment, he is only a man, is not the young Shimada lord too soon, is not the eldest son, is only a brother sickened and tired to breaking with grief and self-hatred – lay one hand against the bare tree’s bark, and bow his head. Watch as he whispers, “Little brother – _please_. Please see sense,” before his back straightens and his shoulders set, resolute.

They both watch as Hanzo turns, no hesitation in his steps now, watch as he runs out of the courtyard, watch him recede into the rain. “When you died,” Zenyatta says, gentle, merciless, “Your grudge rose into the storm. Swelled its fury into a monstrous strength. And then you followed its path southward – to your former home. You struck, as the demon you’d become, a mononoke born of hate and pain and primal force. But your brother – ”

“My brother was not _there_! The loyal first son of the Shimada – with my blood yet wet on his blade, who had hurt me at the orders of our elders – yet had the gall to _flee_ as _I_ – ” Genji falters. Stumbles. Clutches his head even as the rain about them surges in intensity. “N-no,” he stammers. “No, I don’t – I don’t know what you’re talking about. I – I didn’t – ”

Zenyatta catches him by the shoulder with one hand, grips him tight enough to _hurt_ , tight enough to push through. “You did not return to the Shimada as you had left them. You returned to them as _malevolence_ , and all the spirits they summoned against your strength _fell_ , for they too knew your rage, the anger of blood betrayed by blood. But your brother had fled, chased away by his own demons, and so you anchored yourself, ate your home as you tore it apart and settled, glutted yet unfulfilled, in its ruins. This is the truth – this is _your_ truth.”

And Genji shakes and cries denial and howls, “W _hy me_?” in response. “Why did my brother choose so? I _never_ – I never – I never _deserved_ to die! Why did _I_ become the monster and not Shimada Hanzo, who struck me down and left me for dead – no! No! _No – !_ ”

Zenyatta lets go of the umbrella in his hand.

  


The rain slams into them both; it roars like the _damned_ , like a hundred lost voices of frustrated denial and the voices of all the men and women that had _died_ in the Shimada estate that night under the claws and fangs and fury of their betrayed second son; the storm _screams_ and its voice becomes Genji’s, fills his lungs to bloating and shreds him from within; he slips through Zenyatta’s fingers when he violently dissolves in a welter of blood and matter and the force of the explosion blows away the memory-illusion of the former estate to reveal the _truth_ – rotten wood and foxfire flame and paving stones torn from the earth, the stench of saturated ground never dry and the husks of its former buildings, their supports standing sharp like _teeth_. Genji’s bones – and the elders’ bones and Rin’s bones and Yuki’s bones and the bones of all the beings enraptured by Shimada Genji's lonely dream – rattle and hiss and clatter, writhing, as they rise from where they lie amongst the destruction, collect in a serpentine mass, are clothed in water and wind, lightning snapping jagged as fangs and claws, and Zenyatta stands firm in the face of the cursed dragon and says, “This is your form,” and feels his body _ring_ with the rightness of it, the truth revealed.

The dragon keens vicious and _strikes_ ; Zenyatta breathes _in_ , short, sharp, kicks up off the ground, and closes his eyes.

Blue energy blossoms into being when the string holding Zenyatta’s mala breaks, and the birth of it turns aside the dragon’s fangs. The beast scrapes the arc of the shield that has formed, created from light shaped hexagonal like honeycomb, and its teeth kick up sparks – it flips, squirms, turns midair to lash out again, slamming into the defense with a force that shatters the air and creates a gap in the rain that is falling relentlessly. It screams, scrabbles its claws as it searches for purchase, and, within the dome, Zenyatta turns up his face like a flower seeking light, and breathes _out_.

The mala floating about him flare and pulse as though with a heartbeat, and Zenyatta sweeps his hands in tandem to their steady rhythm, each throb trailing ripples of energy across the surface of the shield; the dragon is jostled by the first, then outright flung away by the second, roaring in thwarted fury, righting itself as a sinuous curve of blue-green energy that twists in, folds down and coils close upon itself until it shudders fullbodied and barrels out of its tangle, vast mouth agape and claws outstretched – Zenyatta closes both of his hands simultaneously and drops, under gravity’s hold once more as the glow from his beads dissolves, and the dragon slams through the air overhead close enough to tatter the edges of any flying cloth. Zenyatta rights himself a bare foot above the ground when he opens one hand; he cuts with it, sharp, gesturing, and the beads closest to that side flare with incandescent light, energy collecting blue and vibrant an instant before loosing itself, true flight like an arrow released from a bow to hammer-blow against the dragon’s side, slicing straight through the tumult of water and wind that comprises its flesh to slam against the ranks of bones underneath. The mononoke screams outrage and pain to the pouring heavens and turns, an animal hurt and lost in it, as quick as a snake, as quick as thought, to slam its mouth closed about the other; Zenyatta’s shields flare into life in time to save him but they are far smaller than before, and he visibly strains within them, fingers twitching with tension as the renewed pulse of his beads increases in tempo.

But then Zenyatta nods to himself, exhales sharply, and then tips his head back, spinning ever so slightly where he floats, and the creases of tension upon his brow smooth out into calmness as the scars on his skin light from within.

The color of the shield deepens an instant before the dragon’s tail comes whipping across as the mononoke lets go; it slams into Zenyatta’s defense with the full brunt of its strength behind it, and the monk is flung across the length of the ruined estate, rotten wood splintering underneath the impact of his body until his shields flicker and shatter in a burst of light; the man ploughs into the wet ground, driving a deep furrow into the oversaturated soil, coughs and spits and hisses in pain when his arm won’t hold his weight when he tries to sit up; he shoves himself upright despite it, eyes still closed but tracking accurately as he arcs both hands through the air, the responding pulse of energy from his beads diverting the dragon’s barreling rush enough for it to crash into what’s left of the kitchens. It thrashes in the rubble, and Zenyatta pushes himself to his feet; he kicks off the ground once more, folds his legs up into lotus, and laces his fingers. The dragon’s keens resolve into words as the monk breathes in.

“Why me? Why _me_? Why did it _have_ to be me?!” The dragon struggles out of the rotten wood, shedding stone. “ _Why did I have to die?_ Why are you here to kill me? Haven’t I suffered enough?” Its eyes flash as it rises into the air once again, maw gaping. “I offered you shelter! I offered you kindness and the warmth of my own bed! And instead you come here with venom on your tongue and violence at your fingertips – why do you do this, Tekhartha?! Why must you disturb me in my dreams?”

The monk breathes out. Raises his hands, crooks his fingers, and says, as the light of one of the beads flares gold, “I met a ronin upon my travels.”

The dragon roars, furious, and leaps through the air towards the figure of the other – only to be thwarted by the golden tether that single bead spins out, binding its limbs in light. Zenyatta continues, solemn, slow: “He told to me a sad tale. A story of a family lost to sorrow – a tale of two brothers and betrayal and the destruction that their quarrel wrought. He carried a bow and quiver, and he shared with me plum wine, and the light of the fire we sat by reflected red off of the silver in his hair.

His name was Hanzo. Nothing more.”

The dragon’s struggles cease momentarily – before they redouble in strength, its screams of rage bleeding into the reverberating howls of the legion it contains, and Zenyatta continues, implacable, even as two more of his beads flare into gold and the glow upon his brow shifts to do the same.

“I journeyed to where the home of the Shimada had once stood, and the villagers warned me away each time I sought. They told me the land was cursed. That I, too, would be consumed by the endless storm, eaten whole by the monster that bedded down in the ruins. One more restless soul to fuel its pain.” The mononoke squirms in its bindings, but more and more lengths of gold encircle it. Zenyatta floats closer. “You have haunted this place for so long. Years and years of hurt collected, lost in your nightly dream of death and the deluge you became, yet helpless to change your course.” He smiles, and it is a small thing, bittersweet. “The man that claimed me as a guest was a kind one. Not this. Not this.” He reaches out, lays a hand upon the whipping mass of wind and water that comprises the dragon’s snout.

“This is not Genji. Is it?”

And the dragon trembles underneath the touch of that kind hand, shudders fullbodied in what little give the golden threads binding him have, and the voice that answers the man is a lone one, too-young and tired and sad, so sad.

“I am so lost,” he says. “But what can I do? I am a beast. A monster of my own making.”

There are nine gold threads that bind the mononoke, and the array upon Zenyatta’s brow is all alight with a transcendent glow, and the monk asks the demon that had once been a man, “Do you still love your brother?”

And, compelled to truth by the grind of power like temple bells in the other’s voice, the dragon answers, “Yes.”

  


Golden light flares. In that moment, the world stands still as the heavens wheel above them. Zenyatta breathes _out_ and does not breathe in, and within the empty void of his chest his heart shudders, stilling. The universe rushes in to fill his ribs and it blankets his form in gold; the monk drives his hand _down_ , breaks straight through the lashing water and wind that shreds the cloth of his robes, to close his fingers about the skull that rests at the crest of the mononoke.

Genji stills.

 _There is hope for you_ the Iris murmurs, and then the fingers of its vessel clench into a fist, crushing the remains of the former second son of the Shimada clan into dust.

  


The dragon falls silently, water and wind streaming away from the bones at its core, these weatherworn things that dissolve into motes of golden light, each illuminated from within before being enveloped; they sink – dragon and monk both – until they come to rest upon the soggy ground.

Zenyatta breathes _in_.

Gasps with it, near-choking, as the Iris returns his body to him; he breathes _in_ and returns to himself knelt cradling the shattered form of Shimada Genji in his lap, the former man’s head – grotesque with the golden faults the Iris has propagated into it – held gentle between his hands. He smiles down at the single intact, dark eye that gazes up at him and feels his heart tremble, tired, in his chest.

“I do not yet know the shape of your regret,” Zenyatta says to him quietly. About them, the rain slowly diminishes from a gale to a storm to a mist and then a stop. “Would it still your soul for me to slay you?”

“I wish – ” Genji whispers. “ – that I could atone. That I could see my brother once more. That I could repent for all the lives my fury held captive, for those souls swallowed by my grief when they strayed.” He closes his eye even as more of his body dissolves into warm light.

“Would you forsake peace for the fulfillment of what yet binds you?”

Genji opens his eye wide and fastens it upon the visage of the other lingering above him. He breathes, “ _Yes_ ,” sincere yet disbelieving, not yet daring to hope, and Zenyatta smiles brighter.

“A burden freely accepted,” he says, laughing. “And so eagerly! How could I not honor such a request?” Gently, so gently, he lays Genji’s head down upon his thighs. Reaches towards his waist to loose the bundle that hangs at the small of his back. He pulls the cloth from it under Genji’s curious gaze, and reveals the helm wrapped within to them both, the steel of it and the leather and the smooth expanse of its faceplate.

“You professed an interest in my clothing,” Zenyatta begins, and there is a hint of mischief in his tone as he continues: “Perhaps this is not quite the circumstances within which you had hoped to see more, but alas. We cannot predict the whims of the universe.”

Genji laughs, despite himself. Zenyatta smiles, warm, eyes curving, and breathes _out_. Golden light envelops them both.

  


“It’s spring, you know.”

Genji turns where he stands, drawn from his contemplation of the ruins about them. Seated at the foot of the great sakura that had once stood at the heart of the Shimada estate, Zenyatta tips his head back, hums and pulls his robes closer about him with slender, uncovered hands, and watches the overcast sky dissolve above them: a circle of blue expands from over Genji’s head into sunshine and white clouds, blossoming clarity from horizon to horizon. The rightness of it thrums in his chest, in his shaking heart and filling lungs; he closes his eyes and can feel the miasma of the land dispelling, dispersing underneath the strong sunshine streaming in. He reaches down, pats one of the roots of the sakura, and feels golden energy spark from his fingertips into the bark, smiles as he feels her scarred spirit stir, and laughs when Genji gasps in audible surprise.

“It is spring,” Zenyatta says. “And there was once a temple that stood here. It was built about the tree at its heart, a sakura that grew vast and strong and wise. It was struck by a great storm, but though the tree was broken underneath its fury, it yet lived, as stubborn as the family its boughs once sheltered. And now, the sun shines, and it is spring,” and here Zenyatta opens his eyes to an abundance of petals, falling like rain, pink and vibrant and _alive_. He breathes in when his gaze falls upon Genji, the former man housed in metal and clean leather, his spirit filling the space within the armor that had been shed from Zenyatta’s frame; Genji opens his hands to the flutter of flowers, delighted, joyful, and Zenyatta smiles when he sees blue butterflies amongst the flickering pink, their bodies dissolving into golden light like the sun as the graveyard of souls the cursed dragon of the northern storm had created is emptied. There is the brush of grateful hands against his bared skin, whispers of thanks murmured into his ears. The mala about his neck chime in bell tones.

Zenyatta makes to stand, flinches when his arm stings him in reprimand for earlier damage; he uses the support of the grand sakura instead, makes it to his feet only to find Genji’s hands steadying him as well, solicitously light on his elbow, the former man appearing at his side like a ghost. Zenyatta smiles at him, and, in the depths of the helm, there is an answering, merry gleam of viridian light.

“Spring is a time to begin anew, I would say. Would this be a rebirth of Shimada Genji as well? Or perhaps an awakening?” Zenyatta remarks, tone light. His gaze, however, is solemn, and Genji’s voice is just as sober despite the playful tilt of his head.

He says, “Just Genji, now,” holds Zenyatta steady until the other has found his feet. “The Shimada are no more. I am only Genji, here and now.”

Zenyatta squeezes the other’s wrist reassuringly, comfortingly, before he steps away. “Then, Genji,” he lilts. “It is the greatest pleasure. It is a beautiful spring day, and the world awaits. Shall we?”

  
And Genji laughs, soul light as it has not been in so long, and answers, “Thank you. Thank you. Yes.”


End file.
